


Papa Don't Preach

by leupagus, waldorph



Series: Well, shit. [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, Mpreg, Sorry dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-31
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:47:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 16,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leupagus/pseuds/leupagus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madonna is informing her Papa that he shouldn't preach, because she's keeping her baby. Danny raises his spoon. "Sing it, sister."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters are broken up by author - we're tag-teaming this fic as an experiment to see how it compares to the lj-comment-fic method, and at the end we might (or might not) take the chapters out. If you don't like clicking from chapter to chapter, just go ahead and view it on a single page. If that's too much of a hassle, then your life is to easy and you should shut the fuck up.

Madonna is informing her Papa that he shouldn't preach, because she's keeping her baby. Danny raises his spoon. "Sing it, sister."

Chin, because he is a good and decent person doesn't even laugh, just says, "More whipped cream, brah?"

"There is not enough whipped cream in the world," Danny replies, but holds out his ginormous bowl of ice cream for a top-off.

Chin has been enormously supportive, mostly because he'd been the one who'd had to rush Danny to the hospital and then he'd been in the room and _seen the chart_ and then the fucking _sonagram_ and they'd stared and Danny had absolutely not cried and Chin had said, "I know where to hide the body if you want to kill him. He's got a lot of enemies; totally plausible for one of them to have killed him."

"I just want to know," Danny had told the hospital ceiling, "what the fuck was in that cocktail." Besides the viagra and hormone enhancers, what the fuck had been in it that made a _human male_ capable of _supporting life_. "Oh my god, where is it going to come out?"

Chin sat down hard in the chair provided, and the doctor, who was doing such an excellent job not freaking out, oh my God, said, "Cesarean."

And then she said, "So...are you the father, Mr. Kelly?"

Chin stared at her, and she arched a perfect eyebrow at her and Chin fumbled out the "straight not that there's anything wrong with that" speech and somehow landed in "just the supportive best friend" category, which made her smile at them indulgently for a minute and if Danny wanted to grab Chin's hand for a second, well, he'd just been told he was the first case of male pregnancy. Well, male sexed. Born-a-male. Gender was hard.

"Well, you seem to be in perfect health," she said. "Except that you're gestating a fetus. I want you back in two weeks, and here's my cell--if you think anything is abnormal--" Danny stares at her incredulously "-- _more_ abnormal," she amends, "Call me, at any time."

Danny had told Steve and he'd looked at Danny and said, "That's...is that Jersey humor?" uncertainly, because he was _broken_ , and oh, God, half of his baby shares this moron's DNA.

And so Danny explains and he makes Steve call Dr. Takamota and Chin backs him up and Steve looks at Kono and Kono stares at them all, and now Danny and Chin are trying to babyproof Danny's shitty apartment and Grace is totally upbeat about the whole thing (even though she understands that secret is the name of the game, here, for Dad's work. If he was a better person he'd feel bad about how often he uses the 'keep it a secret for daddy's work' line, but, well). Rachel stared at him incredulously, but then she came with him to one of his check-ups and now she's finding all of Grace's old stuff and giving Danny pamphlets about Hawaii's best schools.

Steve is kind of acting wounded and like this is all a huge joke he doesn't appreciate.

Danny's about to _kill_ him.


	2. Chapter 2

Because seriously, the only person who's worse at this "understanding and support" thing is Kono, who thinks it's goddamn hilarious and immediately goes out to buy the worst things she can think of. Which is a lot of things.

"What -- what even is this," Danny says flatly, holding the white, stretchy, _lacey_ cotton loop between his hands.

"It's a [belly band](http://www.ingridandisabel.com/bellaband.html)," Kono says breezily, cocking one hip up onto the computer table. "It's to keep your pants from --"

"Don't finish that sentence," Danny orders. Chin, who'd taken one look at Kono's shopping bag and said, "You're a terrible human being, Kalakaua," just sighs heavily.

"--Popping a button like they're about to do," Kono disobeys. "Look, you loop it over your head and -- here, give it," and Danny's tired and of course Steve's fetus is making him nauseated twenty-four-seven and he isn't allowed, you know, _coffee_ anymore even though he's going to cling to Rachel's assurance that one glass of red wine per day was perfectly fine, so he can't really be held responsible for the fact that Kono's whipping off his belt and unfastening the top button of his pants in the middle of HQ.

Jenna shoulders her way in from Steve's office, where she hasn't set up camp so much as started nesting, looks up, and turns around to disappear back where she came from. Danny wishes he could do the same thing, but Jenna's taken to asking him oddly specific questions about his digestion in order to track something-or-other about his pregnancy, and he's not in the mood.

"See?" Kono says, adjusting the loop so it goes over his waistband. "This way you can still wear your pre-fecund--"

"What did you just call me?" Danny demands.

"Anyway, it's so you can put off buying maternity pants for a while longer," Kono says.

"I'm not getting maternity -- paternity -- I'm not getting new pants, okay?"

Kono looks disappointed in him as a human being. "Danny. I didn't know how to say this, but seriously, you've put on a few pounds. Pregnancy is really no excuse for muffin top."

"I will kill you. And Steve. Mostly Steve but I'm _definitely_ killing you," Danny says.

"Gotta catch me first," Kono shrugs. "And you're kind of moving a little slow, these days." She frowns and tugs a little on the belly band, reaching around to pull up Danny's pants a bit at the back. "It actually looks pretty good," she says, sounding sad.

Of course, Steve chooses that moment to come back from updating the Governor on their latest case.


	3. Chapter 3

The really excellent thing about Chin and Kono being on _his_ side is that they are so not on Steve's. So when Steve looks up and sees Danny with this...whatever the fucking hell this _is_ and Kono adjusting things and Chin leaning against the supercomputer table, fist in his mouth trying not to laugh, and he just rolls his eyes because somehow he thinks that this is still a joke (even with the sonograms, and speaking to the doc), Chin and Kono try to strip him of his flesh with their eyes.

See, Danny's not really sure how much clearer he can be, here, but he's getting ready to kill his baby's daddy.

Well, no, but Kono is, which is just as good. Actually, so is Rachel. Rachel, for someone who ditched Danny for a relationship that didn't even _work out_ , is very invested in Danny's relationship with Steve. She gave him a _marriage counselor's number_. Danny is just not equipped for this shit.

"So. We got a case?" Steve says, kind of uncertain and irritated about that while Danny buttons up his shirt and glares at Kono. If she breaks out breast pumps he's not going to be responsible for his actions.

"You asking or telling?" Danny demands, tucking his shirt back in. Muffin top his ass, he still looks good.

"Lawyer in a high profile case goes missing, he was bringing four Yakuza to trial for a series of murders. Kono, you and Chin go recon, Danny and I are gonna go talk to Urimoto, guy who runs the bar this lawyer went to, says he has ties to -- what?"

"Un _believable_ ," Kono tells him.

"Uh, what she means to say," Chin says, glaring at Kono, "is that she'd really like to go work on her Japanese, so she wants to tag along to this Urimoto guy's...bar. Danny and I can go talk to the guy's wife."

"Husband," Steve auto-corrects, and then goes back to Aneurysm face.

"Sure," Chin says easily, and then _takes Danny by the arm_. "We'll check in!"

It's a quick enough case, but Steve leaves fast, after, like he can't wait to be away from them.

Which is new, and not entirely exciting.

"He kept telling me to knock it off," Kono says. "There may have been yelling."

"Him or you?"

"He is going to be a _dad_ ," Kono says, putting her hand on Danny's abdomen to demonstrate. "Like it or not that comes with responsibilities and he needs to grow the fuck up and own up to them. I mean, you're still in that shitty apartment!"

"Hey!" Danny protests.

Chin shakes his head. "Nah, it's shitty, don't argue with that."

It's not fine, though, because God he was so happy about Grace, and now there's this baby and - and it's his, and it's a kid and this is all kinds of fucked up but it's a baby. Steve needs to get the fuck over it.

Apparently this shows on his face because they take him out to dinner and then to Babies R Us and the three of them stare at the bajillion strollers and try to figure out no seriously, what the fuck?

Then they get kicked out of Babies R Us because they have a three-way race to test the jogging strollers and then Kono argues that she can't properly test the beach-ready ones if they won't let her test it on the beach.

"I didn't know you could get kicked out of Babies R Us," Danny admits.

Kono grins at him. "You have much to learn, young Jedi."

"You are never coming near my kid," he tells her, and she laughs and goes to get them shave ice.

"Steve's a dick," Chin says, and Danny shrugs and says,

"Some guys just aren't cut out for being parents. And the great thing is, you already have Jenna to replace me!"

"I didn't realize you had this streak of cruelty in you," Chin tells him flatly, and Danny laughs. "I see it now," Chin continues. "You've been distracting us with the hair."

"Oh my god," Kono says, handing them their ice. "What if it has _your hair_?"


	4. Chapter 4

Grace insists, with that narrow-eyed determination that Danny suspects she got from him, on coming to the doctor's on the day Danny's supposed to find out if he's having a boy or a girl or an octopus or what. She gets Rachel in on it too, so the three of them troop down to Dr. Takamota's clinic and Grace pretends she's a walrus with some of the tongue depressors while they wait.

"We never asked to find out what Gracie was," Danny points out, just because somebody ought to remember that. It's not like he's going to love Spawn (God, he should probably stop calling it that) any differently if it's a girl or a boy. It shouldn't matter, and it doesn't, but Dr. Takamota wanted "all available data," which was hopefully why Jenna's started weighing him every morning when he gets to the office.

"Gracie was conceived over here," Rachel points out, gesturing to her stomach. "And frankly, Daniel, I'm much better at organizing these kinds of things. They probably just want to make sure you haven't given it an extra head or something."

"That doesn't even make sense," Danny protests, but he's laughing, and when the nurse comes in and puts the weird gel on his stomach and there's the rasping stutter of a baby's heartbeat suddenly loud in the room, he fumbles for Rachel's hand and squeezes.

"It looks like a girl," the nurse says. "Good development - you're about twenty weeks along, right?"

Almost exactly, Danny realizes. Which makes it almost fifteen weeks since he and Steve last had sex - it had been a pretty amazing month, and Danny had ignored the thing where he'd had to throw up every morning and he was feeling off-balance all the time until he'd fallen out of bed and Steve had taken him to the ER, where the on-call doctor had checked his blood work and gone, "Huh."

Grace leans over Danny's legs, frowning at the picture. "It doesn't look like a girl," she observes. "It looks like a baby gerbil."

"That's what you looked like, once upon a time, babe," Danny reminds her.

"But you were inside _me_ ," Rachel says, and later Danny's going to have a conversation with her about any feelings of inadequacy she might be feeling at the moment.

Grace wrinkles her nose. "Gross. I like this better, I'm totally going to marry Tommy and make him have the babies."

"Christ, what?" Danny says.


	5. Chapter 5

Jenna drops five, count them, _five_ baby name books on Danny's desk the next day.

Danny stares at then, and then looks at her. "Um."

"You need to research names," she says. "It's important. Now, you're obviously Roman Catholic with a penchant for traditional names, given Grace's. I imagine you have sisters with names like Elizabeth or Catherine or Christina, so these...two should be helpful for you. Familiar. This one is for traditional Hawaiian names, which isn't so much for you but...well." She looks over her shoulder at Steve's office and then gives Danny a little smile. "And the last two are kind of standard, with novelty sections, origin history, etymological meanings, famous people with the same names, that kind of thing. I just, um. I thought you should be prepared for it-I mean, for-you know, the- for the baby."

"Her," Danny says. "It's a girl."

Jenna beams at him, the first wide-open smile he's ever seen from her. "That's- that's excellent," she says. Plus, I mean, you have all of Grace's clothes and stuff, so there's less you have to pay, because raising a baby- oh my God, have you _seen_ the prices?"

Danny thinks about the Babies R Us he's no longer admitted into and nods. "Yeah."

Kono, that horrible, horrible, _horrible_ human being, shows up with one of those huge overstuffed _bunnies_ (pink) and a million balloons (pink and cream) and a basket (white and pink) full of diapers.

The biggest balloon says IT'S A GIRL. Danny doesn't even _know_ how she knows this, she has powers, or she's dating his doctor, or Grace called her.

Actually, Grace probably told her at their surfing lesson.

Pregnancy seems to be making Danny paranoid.

Steve's not in yet, or he's...somewhere.

Danny should- fifteen weeks ago Danny would have known exactly where he was. Right now he's got bigger things to worry about, like whether Chin's going to break his face trying not to laugh, or whether now Jenna thinks she's going to be...actively researching instead of covertly trying to take his fucking temperature, or whether he can kill Kono (because damnit, she is faster, was even before he...was impregnated).

"I think you should name her Kono," Kono says. "Kono Jr."

"This baby is half-McGarrett, why would I want to name her Kono? I would _lose_ all my hair," Danny says.

"Well, brah, let's be fair. It's already going," Kono says, reaching for it, and Danny can't chase her down but he can still slap her fingers and glare.

"Malia's nice," Chin suggests, and Kono raises her eyebrows at him and Danny points and says,

"I am not naming my baby after your ex-fiance so you can score points."

"Do we ever work around here?" Steve demands. He's got a yellow envelope in hand, and it's not so much Kill All The Things Face as it's Commit Mass-Genocide Face. Jenna, because she's still getting used to this, starts to get up, but Kono puts a hand on her thigh and raises her eyeebrows.

"It's a girl!" she says, cheerful like she can take it and shove it down Steve's throat and _make_ him get on board with this. "We were just planning baby names."

Steve looks at Danny, and then at Kono, and then at Danny again, and then says, soft, "Danny, can I see you?"

"Sure, Steven," Danny replies, and gets up (fuck you, Kono, that's not harder than it was, and no, his lower back doesn't kill) and shuts Steve's door behind him.

Steve draws the curtains.

"They can still hear us when we yell," Danny points out.

"We're not going to yell," Steve says.

"Really? Because maybe I feel like yelling," Danny says, folding his arms over his chest. Spawn kicks against his kidneys. If she's siding with her father so help her she is grounded forever, and that's all Danny's gonna say on the subject. "Maybe I want to know why you chuck me, and then you, you what? Get hurt when you're not involved?"

"It's not _funny_ , Danny!" Steve says in that controlled voice that's really just a shout.

"No fucking shit!" Danny shouts. "I am a guy, I am with child, my ex-wife is having some sort of complex about this that I don't even _know_ , Kono is getting me banned from every fucking baby store on the island and Chin is apparently stepping up to the plate and I'm pretty sure Jenna is about to start trying to take my temperature when I come in since she's already _weighing me_!" Steve opens his mouth, but Danny's had enough. "No, no, you shut up. You don't get to talk, you get to _listen_. Everyone, even fucking _Stan_ , has stepped up. Kamekona isn't sure what the fuck is going on but he's still bringing me breakfast and dinners and making sure I don't get too much sun. Grace is so excited about having a little sister--well, no, Grace is planning on making her future husband carry the child, but that's not the point.

"The point, Steven, is that every _single_ person has stepped up except the guy I was with. Except the guy who got me to this point. He's acting like he's been wronged or we're all ganging up on him, like our lives aren't too stressful to maintain a practical joke this involved."

Spawn kicks again and Danny doubles over, holding his side. He feels hot and sick and when Steve makes a weird, aborted move Danny just points at him.

"Don't fucking touch me."

Chin gives him a ride home and says he'll pick him up tomorrow, and doesn't mention the fact that Danny might, possibly, be leaking from his eyes.

He watches _The Back-Up Plan_ and is intensely jealous of J.Lo while demolishing the pint of Cherry Garcia.

He needs to move. He can't afford it, but he can't raise a baby here. He can barely have Grace here on the weekends.

With a groan he grabs his laptop and starts searching for small, affordable houses on the island, and gets more and more depressed.

And then someone pounds on the door, which means Kamekona's here with dinner, which is bound to have pineapple but, in keeping with Spawn being Steve's, all Danny wants to eat is pineapple.

He gets up with a groan- Rachel had morning sickness _every single morning_ of her pregnancy with Grace. Danny is avoiding that, but he's traded it in for this bone-deep weariness that he just can't shake. Spawn is going to be problematic. She's already kicking at him, and according to _What to Expect When You're Expecting_ (thank you, Jenna), she's on schedule, which-- he's not _worried_ , but he's a guy and he's pregnant and part of him thinks he's going to irrevocably fuck her up from the womb. So it's nice when she does things or he notices things and they correspond to his million baby books.

He opens the door and looks at Steve. Then he blinks because…it's Steve. On his doorstep.

"So, uh. Mary--" he breaks off, and then tries again. "I've been a dick."

"Yeah," Danny allows, leaning against his door and watching him, watching the guilt and the fear and the hope play out across his face and thinks he's so so fucked. He's so stupidly in love with this asshole. "Yeah, your dickishness is not in dispute, here. I'm not gonna argue."

"Can I come in?" Steve asks.

Rachel wouldn't have let him in--Rachel didn't, after fights like these. Kono, he's pretty sure would punch him in the face, and Jenna would probably--well, Jenna would either try to punch him in the face or she'd smile sadly and shut the door in his face.

Danny lets him in.


	6. Chapter 6

"So I--" Steve gets in and stops, mouth working and eyebrows doing that weird thing that shouldn't be cute as he takes in the metric ton of baby shit that Chin and Kono and Danny have managed to cram into the living room. Gone is the horrible pull-out couch; in its place are a loveseat and a padded rocking chair that apparently rocked every Kalakaua ever born ever. It's huge and ancient and Danny wonders how much he has to cry at Kono's grandma before she'll let him keep it forever. There's also a crib, ornate and kind of ugly, but Rachel had actually been _nervous_ when she'd given it to him, ready to take it back at a moment's notice, and Danny's not made of stone. Besides, there's a built in ladder-thing so Gracie can climb up and peer at her sister-presumptive when the little miss finally makes her debut. There's a rug with the ABCs depicted by various Hawaiian plants and animals, and over the loveseat is something called a [Moby wrap](http://www.mobywrap.com/), because Kono is still a bad person.

"Wow." Steve turns in place, looking at everything. "Uh."

"You were saying," Danny prompts. "About the being-a-dick thing."

"Right. I, um." Steve flaps his hands around a little. Danny wonders if he got that from him; they've been partners for more than a year; for a while they were a lot more than partners, and it shouldn't make Danny ache the way it does to see that little bit of Jersey sneaking into Steve's laid-back frame. "Look, I just wanted to say, I'm sorry. For, you know."

There isn't anything after that, and Danny leans forward, in case he missed it. "For you know, what?"

"For knocking you up? I think? Although we should blame the bio-terrorists for that one, honestly," Steve says. "Since I don't think either one of us was really--"

"Oh, my God, I've never wanted a goat cheese farmer more in my life," Danny groans, putting his hands over his face. "At least Stan wasn't trying to blame terrorists for getting J.Lo pregnant."

"Goat cheese -- Stan? Rachel's Stan? Who's Jay Low?" Steve demands.

"I don't _care_ that you knocked me up, Steven! I don't care that there was -- I mean, look, that night, who knows, it was crazy, but that's not really what I'm mad about, okay? Don't get me wrong. I am full of anger. I have almost as much anger as I have fetus, okay? But I'm not pissed because you and I've created the miracle of life!"

"Then -- you're... pissed.... because... I didn't believe you?" Steve tries, blinking rapidly. To be fair, Danny's kind of two inches from his face and poking him in the chest with his finger. Danny spares a smug thought that Steve's probably battling the twin impulses to put Danny in another ninja-lock and the lessons he learned as a kid not to hit a pregnant lady. Then he realizes he just classified himself as a pregnant lady and wants to die all over again.

He tries to focus. "Yes. _Yes_ , I'm pissed that you didn't believe me, and I'm pissed that you'd think I -- that you'd think all of us -- what the fuck is your damage, that you can't trust your own team? You've told me plenty of insane shit that I've believed, but what, you can't extend me the same courtesy?"

"I just didn't think you -- I thought it was a reason. For you to, uh." Steve swallows, doesn't look at Danny's face. "I thought you didn't want to. Anymore."

"So you're saying you're actually a moron," Danny clarifies. "Of course I want to. Have you looked at you? You're weird, but you're pretty..." he loses steam, because for the first time since he came in -- actually, no, for the first time in almost three months -- Steve's looking at him, smiling, and he grabs Danny's finger but instead of twisting it around he pulls Danny closer, his other hand smoothing down the aching curve of Danny's back.

"Pretty what," he says, nudging along Danny's cheek with his nose, brushing his mouth against Danny's.

"Just pretty," Danny admits, and kisses him.


	7. Chapter 7

As a testimony to how stupid Danny is he thinks that it's going to be all goat cheese and happy endings, now.

It is, a little. Or it feels like it, when he wakes up in the middle of the night, goes to the bathroom (Spawn feels like she's right over her bladder and she's happy about it) and comes back to find Steve sitting on his kitchenette's floor with the ultrasound pictures, a flashlight, and Grace's It's A Girl! announcement (Grace is into glitter, this month, and it's fucking everywhere). He looks so sad and so heartbroken, small in a weird way. Danny's not used to it, and maybe he should be angry, still. Frustrated.

But he isn't good at holding onto a grudge, wasn't ever good at hating people who hurt him, not when he loves them. Not when, at the end of the day, they apologize.

"Hey," he says, soft, when Steve doesn't look up.

"Hey, did I wake you?"

"No, had to take a leak, saw the light."

Steve looks at him. His eyes are bloodshot- red-rimmed. "I'm…I'm really sorry, Danny."

"Yeah, babe. I know you are," Danny says softly, and holds out his hand. "And tomorrow you can apologize to Grace and Rachel and the team and pray for sweet, sweet mercy."

"Kono's going to kill me."

"I'd be more worried about Grace, babe, to be honest. And then Rachel. Then Kono."

He tucks Steve back into bed, and when he wakes up it's to absolute crazy.

He, stupidly, did not anticipate that Steve will be a fucking batshit expectant father.

He should have. He should have seen this coming. Kono is ridiculous as it is, but Steve. Steve is a level of crazy Kono still aspires to.

So when Danny wakes up to the smell of food his first thought is awesome, and then he looks at it.

Egg white omelet with broccoli and spinach and…lentils. Bananas. Pregnancy power foods. Danny looks at it and then lunges for the bathroom.

Steve hovers and Danny glares at him. "I have not had morning sickness for five weeks and you come back and I'm making new friends with the toilet. I have not missed this, Steven."

Steve hovers while Danny eats, and he puts his hand on the small of Danny's back while he escorts him to the car and he tries to open the door for Danny when they get to work.

Jenna, instead of meeting him at the scale, smiles sweetly and tells Steve she's going to steal Danny for just a second, and then, when she has him, looks at him and says,

"Okay, I don't know what's going on, and, well, I don't know, you guys are weirdly close. But Kono like, wants to divert Steve into a holding room and Chin has a baseball bat, and I am kind of freaking out."

Danny looks at her, and then down the hall. "It's…well. It'll all work out in the end," he says.

"Are you lying?" she asks, glaring at him sternly. It would be more effective if she didn't kind of remind him of a puppy.

It breaks his heart to do this, because it seems to cruel to disillusion her, but being a parent is hard, and apparently--apparently he's doomed to be the mom. So he looks at her, and he says, "Yes."


	8. Chapter 8

But Steve either gets the drop on them or is suitably contrite, because ten minutes later, when Danny and Jenna peer out into the main office, there's no blood trail or dismembered Steve-corpse littering the floor. In fact, all three of them are frowning seriously at the table console, and Danny feels a flood of relief because, right, case, they're going to actually solve some crimes today--

"I just don't think I need a special stroller for that, that's all," Steve is saying seriously. Danny comes close enough to see what's on the console - babiesRus.com. Chin's got it open to jogging strollers, and is pointing out one with a camo cover. "I can just, you know, carry her around if we need to stage a retreat into the canopy. Babies are small, right? I'll practice for a few weeks with a bowling ball or something. It's fine. I'm more worried about her crying and giving away our position."

Chin is pinching his nose and is about to say something when Kono elbows him hard in the chest. "That's such a great plan, Boss," she says, with the sickly-sweet deference she only hauls out when she's planning something diabolical. "Strollers are for pussies. Hey, have you heard of the Moby wrap? It comes in camo."

"Oh, my God, can someone please be murdered to death so we can work and not talk about strollers," Danny pleads. "Or camo. And don't think I missed that part where you're going to try raising the next Natty Bumpo. I didn't agree to let this baby go feral. Bad enough she's got you for a father, she's practically half-wild already."

Steve blinks at him. "This stuff is important, Danny," he says soberly.

"I'm not above murdering you _myself_ if I have to," Danny says.

*

The conversation between Grace and Rachel and Steve is kind of terrible, and Danny's got a person growing inside of him and he has to live for another etc, so he bravely escapes to the balcony, where Stan is lurking with a glass of what looks like whiskey. Danny always thought he'd be more into scotch.

"There's a lot of yelling," Stan explains. Danny flinches; he can hear, from the kitchen, the sound of something breaking. He'd worry about Grace being in that kind of charged environment, except he's pretty sure the crash was _her_ , throwing the mug Steve got for her last year at his face.

"Yeah, that happens with Steve. He's a catalyst." There's some kind of high-pitched stream of yelling, followed by a door slamming. "For a lot of things."

Stan nods, then stares down at his glass, and then out on the grounds. It's a little awkward, Danny's not going to lie.

There's the sound of stomping, and the balcony door is wrenched open. "Take him away," Grace orders, scowling up at Danny. She's got her arms crossed and her eyebrows down; there's no talking to her right now, so Danny kisses the top of her head and makes his way down to the kitchen. Upstairs, he can hear Grace slamming her bedroom door. Twice.

Rachel and Steve are sitting on opposite sides of the long kitchen island; Steve's leaning on his elbows, looking about ten years older, and Rachel is watching him and biting her lip. Sure enough, the mug with daisies on it is lying in broken shards on the ground.

"Hope you remember where you got that, babe," Danny says; Steve starts guiltily, but Rachel just smiles at him. "Gracie's gonna be in tears tomorrow morning when she remembers she did that."

"I -- yeah, the tourist trap down on the main road," Steve says. He drags himself to his feet.

"You look like it was twelve rounds, no decision," Danny observes.

"That's about the size of it. But he's very sorry," Rachel says, sliding off the stool. "Is my husband lurking anywhere nearby?"

"He's cowering bravely on the balcony," Danny tells her, and she reaches out to give Steve's arm a squeeze.

"Welcome to the Williams family," she says. "I'll be sure to send you the pamphlet."

Danny waves her off and pulls Steve close, his hand comfortable on the back of Steve's neck. "You gonna live?" he asks.

"What pamphlet?" Steve asks. His voice is hoarse, like he was trying to out-yell a ten-year-old. Good luck with that.

"It's not a real pamphlet, Steve. Well, maybe it is, Rachel's in advertising and that's the kind of thing she'd make an intern mock up for shits and giggles, but as far as I know, there's no Williams Family Pamphlet."

"Might not be a bad idea," Steve says. "I think Grace's going to order a hit on me."

"Not a chance, babe," Danny assures him. "She'd want to do it herself. Come on, let's go home."


	9. Chapter 9

The moving in thing…just kind of happens. Not a lot of fanfare, Danny just starts staying at Steve's and Steve enlists Kono, Chin and Jenna to help him move all the baby stuff from Danny's apartment to Spawn's room.

Spawn's room actually causes the commotion, because everyone's a fucking critic and even though Danny is the one fast approaching "whale" categorization, they all think they should get to weigh in. It also fixes the Grace/Steve Rift of '11, so Danny is forgiving of all.

Chin has some strong opinions on curtains, which, what the fuck, who even knew.

Kono gives him this like, case-long rant about gender policing and colors and shit while she is supposed to be tracking down bad guys and then while she's _beating up_ bad guys and Danny has never loved Steve more than he does when Steve "accidentally" breaks Kono's mic.

Rachel has the fucking gall to actually pick a fight over the color of the baby's room (she's in favor of sea foam green, which…if the kid wants sea foam she can look out her fucking window because, oh yeah, Danny has ocean front unlike _some people_ ). The fight is like a big flashback to the last year of their marriage and he's baffled by how they get there and she's equally as confused but neither of them is going to _back down_ so Danny just kicks her out. And then he gets in Steve's truck and picks up two gallons of 'Lemon Chiffon' at Home Depot.

It's a happy color, and Steve likes the way it brightens up the room and Danny enjoys watching Steve paint. The color also has the added bonus of being really easy to paint over when Spawn decides she doesn't like that color any more. Danny had repainted Grace's room twice before the divorce--he's a big fan of letting your room reflect who you are (he shared with Matt. Matt--Danny loves the guy, but his bad life decisions can probably be traced back to his horrible taste in decor).

He shares this with Steve, and the next weekend Steve and Grace spend _all of Saturday_ going back and forth from Home Depot and the house with samples of paint in Mary's old room, trying to pick a color (she goes with "Vesper Violet", which looks blue to Danny but whatever, his baby is happy, he is not fighting this one). Grace ends up with paint in her hair and on her face and she engages in a guerrilla campaign to cover Steve, at one point "accidentally" getting him in the face with the roller, but she's smiling and laughing and singing along to Taylor Swift (the only thing worse than that is that apparently Steve knows all the words to _Love Story_ ).

Grace likes helping Danny set up Spawn's room, and she keeps looking at the things (the millions of terrible, terrible things and the millions of things that make him remember that this island is filled with good people) and asking if she had all of this. She's not jealous, just curious, with her eyes all lit up, but…well. It always gives Danny pangs because she didn't--because he and Rachel been younger and poorer and their friends had been, too, and she'd had a salvation army crib that creaked and never actually was level, and a couple of stuffed animals and their splurge had been on the baby carrier/car seat because Danny _knows_ how Rachel drives. There had been hand-me-downs and it--it hadn't been _bad_. It just hadn't been this.

Baby-proofing turns out to be a whole circle of hell Danny hadn't envisioned.

"Is this…no. Wait. Let me start that again: _Why_ is there a grenade in this drawer?"

Steve looks up and then at the drawer and shrugs. "In case I need it."

"In case you--" Danny starts, and then pinches the bridge of his nose. "Okay, no. You keep duct tape in case you need it. Household tools, rope, thumbtacks, pens, maybe even a jack knife. What you do not do is keep a _grenade_ in the junk drawer."

"Well, after we had to make the Molotov cocktails--" Steve starts, and then frowns in concern. "Danno, maybe you should sit down, you look like your blood pressure is--"

"Do not even," Danny warns, glaring, but lets Steve take the grenade from him carefully and then guide him to the couch. "Look, this was the house of a retiree, okay? And then you, but you…haven't really changed anything since your dad."

Chin has told Danny that the house feels like a fucking mausoleum, and Danny has noticed that Chin, when he comes over, spends as little time inside as he can.

Now Steve is looking around, and Danny gets it. He's the oldest kid, and the oldest grandchild/nephew and whenever anyone died Danny was the one who had to go over to the house to help with the empty-out. And it sucked, and little things like bookmarks suddenly become precious and you don't want to throw anything away because things are tangible, and they've been loved and touched by someone who's gone. But living with mementos and memories is one thing and living inside an untouched house is another.

What Danny doesn't expect, when he comes home from testifying at _yet another case_ , is that Steve will have enlisted everyone he fucking knows including, apparently, some guys from base and they will be revamping the house entirely.

Except that's absolutely what's going on, because when Danny pulls in the driveway there is a fucking _dumpster_ and Kamekona in a chair on the front lawn and when Danny gets inside Kono grins at him.

She has an _axe_. Jenna has a tool belt slung around her hips and Danny can see Chin in the kitchen and oh, what fresh hell?

"Baby proofing," Jenna says, and Danny nods, but he doesn't…understand why baby proofing involves lots of sweaty men and the removal of a wall (god, please, not a supporting wall, because Steve is very pretty, but…well. He's pretty). The walls are bare and stained where there were nautical-themed photos and Danny…needs to sit down.

"Hey, how'd the case go?" Steve asks, like there's nothing going on, materializing like the goddamn ninja he is and sitting next to Danny, leaning in to brush a kiss into the corner of Danny's mouth, casual as anything.

"ASA thinks it's a slam dunk," Danny replies, because this time there was no contaminated evidence (it happens, despite Kono and Steve's best efforts) and then, "What…"

"Well, I was thinking about what you said and then I was talking to Chin and then Mary and…you were right. I mean, we redid Grace and the baby's rooms, but--"

"But you felt the need to gut and start over? With…four months left."

Steve gives him a look, the one that says Danny has offended Steve's SEAL warrior spirit. This look usually ends up with gates crashed in or bombs going off or Steve jumping out of helicopters.

Danny gives him the Don't Give a Shit look back, because he is _gestating spawn_ and he moved in with a crazy person and when he has this baby there had better be walls and a roof and floor. All of them, _or else_.

"Don't worry," Steve tells him, all easy smiles, that doofy smile that makes witnesses give it up and pretty boys and girls melt. Danny is fucking immune to that smile, but Steve just squeezes his knee and heads off in the direction of the study and Danny…can't cope.

"Here," Catherine says, handing him a glass of red wine. "You're allowed, and I'd say you earned it."

Danny…doesn't even know why Steve's ex-girlfriend/friend-with-benefits/booty-call/connection/whatever is offering him comfort, but he does know what that means.

It means he's _fucked_.


	10. Chapter 10

The end of the second trimester is looming, and now that Steve's taking the whole "baby daddy" pretty seriously he insists on tagging along for the next check under the hood. Dr. Takamota gives him the eyebrow to end all eyebrows but doesn't say anything until after the exam.

"So this is the famous Steve McGarrett?" she asks Danny. "Given the way he's shifting around like he has to take a leak, I'm assuming he's the guy I had to talk to on the phone. _Twice_."

"Sorry about that," Danny says. "He's not exactly housebroken."

"He called my residency hospital. And my med school. He subpoenaed my _grades_. And apparently had a chat with my ex-husband."

"Steve, you _shmuck_ ," Danny groans. "When the time comes, I don't want her witholding the good drugs because you were a dick!"

"I had to make sure she was on the level!" Steve protests. "And in my defense, her grades were excellent and she's highly qualified." He seems to wilt a little under the twin glares of Danny and Dr. Takamota. "Plus your ex had nothing but nice things to say. He said to say hi."

"You're lucky you're cute," she mutters, flipping through Danny's file, which is about two and a half inches thick. Danny doesn't remember Rachel's pregnancy generating quite that amount of paperwork, but hey. "Also I forgot to tell you, Danny -- you may be the first male pregnancy--"

"We've gone over this," Danny says, grinning, "And I thought we agreed Schwartzennegger was the first."

"Okay, second, case," Dr. Takamota allows. "But you're not the only one anymore. Fifteen cases popped up on an Army base in Montana. They were trying to keep it quiet but one of our boys kind of freaked out and went to a Planned Parenthood." She makes an uncomfortable face. "Except it looks like he was too far along for them to do anything."

Danny blinks. "I'm guessing he didn't handle that well."

"You ever try telling a man trained to kill that you can't help him because the law forbids it?" she asks, then flicks her gaze at Steve. "Never mind. Stupid question. So, bad news, you won't be getting the attention I know you were craving over this whole thing."

"Yeah, real tragedy," Danny mutters.

Steve frowns. "They find out what happened? How they got impregnated?"

Dr. Takamota shrugs. "I talked with one of the docs - he kept ranting about some kind of sex pollen, I don't know." She tilts her head thoughtfully at Steve. "You're a military man, aren't you?"

"I'm Navy," Steve says, too fast and too loud.

"Mmm." Dr. Takamota turns her attention back to Danny. "Everything's great. She's looking good, strong heartbeat. And her hearing is probably developing at this point, so if you want, you can play music for her. Some parents like to do that."

And for some godforsaken reason, Danny reports back to his team and lets slip that little nugget of information. He sees Kono's eyes light up with all the evil of Hell and thinks, fuck my fucking life.


	11. Chapter 11

There are sweet moments, now that Steve's on board. Moment like this, when Danny wakes up in the middle of the night to find Steve pressing headphones into Danny's stomach as Spawn kicks away delightedly.

"The baby books say classical," Steve explains softly. "Schubert."

Danny is 100% sure that Steve is only even _aware_ of Schubert because they watched _The Young Victoria_ the other night (Danny…doesn't even know. He wanted to watch _Red_ ), and now it's being piped into his abdomen.

"Maybe she'll play piano," Danny says. He wanted to, when he was a kid. His parents couldn't afford the lessons, but he and Steve probably could. "Be the next great composer."

"No good music schools on the islands," Steve murmurs.

"Where did you go?" Danny asks, and Steve looks up at him, then laughs, turning his face into the sheet.

"Annapolis. There were no courses on what to do when your boyfriend gets knocked up, though."

"Probably one of those implied things: suck it up and deal."

"Hooyah."

But then there are moments like this, where Steve is _fucking insane_.

"You _called_ my _parents_?"

"I wanted to introduce myself!" Steve protests, looking wounded. "We're having a baby, I figured I should get to know them before she comes along and--"

God, that's another thing Danny's trying to figure out. He keeps talking to the Governor and she's pretty sure that he can just put Steve on the birth certificate as the second parent, but she has aides looking into it. She keeps implying, terrifyingly, that it would be better if they were married.

Sooner or later that shit is going to trickle down to Steve, and Danny didn't want that to come from his _mother_ , which, it is.

Danny can't keep _shit_ from her, and as soon as she hears "grandchild" she's going to be all over them about a wedding.

It's not even going to faze her, the gay thing, the pregnant man thing. Danny has a headache from hell.

Spawn kicks his kidneys spitefully. Danny puts a hand to his side and presses back, because she's such a little shit. She's never getting a car: she'll ram people's gates and drive on these "roads" and god, god, this kid is going to give him heartfailure.

"No, Steven. You _talk to me_ and I arrange it. You don't sneak around behind my _back_ , because that incites me to homicide," Danny snaps.

"I bought them plane tickets," Steve admits.

Danny stares at him in blank horror and sits down hard on the couch. "Kill me now."

Spawn beats on his spine like she's trying to acquiesce. His life. What. _What_.


	12. Chapter 12

"What is it?" Steve asks, kneeling down in front of him, frowning and nervous and it's hard to stay too pissed at that expression. "Do you want an ice pack? Or a heating pad? Or a pillow --" he runs out of steam for a second. "Soup?" he tries.

"No," Danny snaps, because yes, it's cute, but he really wants to hold on to this irritation for a little while. It's distracting him from Spawn's tap-dance of hell. "I would like to know what you discussed with my parents. Two people who, by the way, have been getting  a little edgy every time they see the eight-oh-eight area code on their caller ID, since the news is usually something about how one of their sons has been shot or the other one's a fugitive from justice or their granddaughter has a frankly disturbing crush on Rebecca Black--"

"Who?" Steve demands.

"Never mind. Just, what did you tell them. About," he gestures to his abdominal area, which is getting to the point where Steve dug up one of the shirts Kamekona gave them, that first day they were partners, and it's _still_ a little tight around the tummy.

Steve clears his throat and gets to his feet. Danny narrows his eyes; he recognizes the signs of Steve getting out of smacking range. "Um," Steve starts.

"You didn't," Danny says.

"I really thought they already knew," Steve says defensively.

"You _did_. Oh my God, Steve, I'm going to have to _murder_ you."

Steve looks crestfallen. "I think your dad's got dibs. He, uh, had some things to say about me, uh. Outraging your virtue."

"Outraging my -- outraging my virtue? Outraging my -- so basically, I'm going to have to murder everyone, is that what you're telling me? Huh?" Danny wants to poke Steve in the chest, but Steve's still too far away. "God, this is worse than when me and Peggy Lubitsky got caught in her parent's basement."

Steve looks like he's torn between smiling and punching Peg in the face. "I'm sorry," he says. "About the telling your parents you were pregnant. Thing."

Danny pinches the bridge of his nose and waves a hand - whatever, it's fine. "So when are they coming? In time for the baby shower that Kono really hasn't convinced me that she's not throwing?"

"Uh," Steve says. "Well, yeah, but I was thinking. Your dad made a pretty convincing argument--"

"Did he threaten to cut off your balls? That's what he did with two of my brothers-in-law--"

"And I was thinking maybe we should get married."

Danny snorts. "So that's a yes, I'm guessing." Then his brain catches up with his ears catches up with his mouth and he stammers, "Wait, what, you want to marry me so you can keep your nuts? Or because you don't want the, whatever, certificate of live birth reading 'Bastard out of Hawaii' or something?"

Steve rolls his eyes so hard Danny's surprised one of them doesn't get stuck that way. Surprised and maybe a little disappointed. "First of all, the Governor already threatened me with castration. There are a lot of people interested in my testicles, it's getting kind of weird."

"Well," Danny smirks, and Steve flops down onto the couch next to him and curls his arm around Danny's shoulders.

"And second, I'm not doing this because of your dad, or the Governor, or certificates of live birth," Steve continues, patiently, like he's said this before, like it should be obvious. "I'm doing it because of you, and Gracie, and the Spawn. Because this is a family, and it's a family if we get married or not, so let's get married."

It's a dumb little speech, not sentimental or cute and there's no violins crescendoing as Steve puts his hand on Danny's knee, thumb rubbing absent circles. So Danny blames the hormones for the fact that he chokes out, "Yeah, okay," and maybe gets a little weepy for a while.


	13. Chapter 13

Danny doesn't know how he didn't see this coming, but apparently adding a marriage ("BEFORE THE BABY IS BORN, DANIEL ARTHUR WILLIAMS" his mother had sobbed at him) to the whole baby thing gives everybody license to lose their collective shit.

The Governor says, as neither of them is particularly religious, that she would be happy to officiate. She keeps looking at Steve like he's the son she never had, and Danny...Danny just can't cope, okay? He is _picking his battles_.

Danny's sisters call and ask him if he wants the hand-me-downs from their broods, and he declines politely and then declines loudly and inventively and flips Steve off for beaming at him and then making frantic _Your blood pressure! Think of our unborn child! I will buy those whale song cds, don't tempt me_ gestures.

Mary calls and wants to know what the fuck is going on, because she got a weird call from Kono, and Danny carefully puts down the phone, turns to Steve and says, "Let me get this straight. You called _my parents_ and not only _outed me_ -"

"Your mother said she knew, and that she joined PFLAG ages ago," Steve mutters.

"-and told them that you got me _knocked up_ and bought them _plane tickets_ , but you didn't call your own fucking _sister_?"

Steve winces. "Mary is...I was..."

Danny folds his arms over his chest. Well, no, he starts to, his stomach gets away which further irritates him, and then he plants his hands on his hips and glares.

"I'll call her," Steve says.

"You do that."

Danny calls Grace to listen to her babble about whatever is cool in her life this week (Tommy, still, which is worrying him. A lot. He is not ready for her to be dating. _Tommy_ isn't ready for her to be dating), and when he hangs up with her he feels better about the world in general, and follows the smell of bacon (the smell of love, come on) to the kitchen.

"How'd that go?"

"She wants to know what we're naming her."

Danny shrugs, leaning against the counter and trying not to look into the pan. Whatever it is it's going to be amazing, but Danny doesn't actually like watching Steve cook. "Tell her we're waiting to meet her to find out."

"Is that what you're saying?"

Danny thinks about the baby name books and the highlighted names and the lists and shrugs. "It's what I'm saying."

"I know you have lists."

"Oh good, you can still read."

"Danny."

"So, make lists, McGarrett. We have until the end o the month when the Williams family descends en masse for the shower that Kono's not throwing-slash-wedding, because apparently that's happening all at once. By then we need a name and we need to discuss what we're doing about her last name, too."

It's a foregone conclusion that they won't be hyphenating or changing their last names- they're on the same taskforce, and it would just complicate things needlessly, and, well. They really have enough complications without adding more.

Kono and Chin's family decide that they're adopting the McGarrett-Williams household and are now sending over casseroles and baby blankets and at this point there is enough baby stuff for at least three babies.

Kamekona's not 100% on what's going on but he's supportive (he actually hit it on the head after that news story broke all over the front page of the Enquirer, but Steve pulled out his crazy eyes and Kamekona had backed down fast). He tells Danny and Steve that he's got the best spot in the island all picked out, but that he also plays the ukelele and he'd be happy to sing at their wedding (for a small fee).

Rachel asks about pre-nups and Danny threatens to kill her with the power of his mind alone. She laughs and pats his cheek and slips him her lawyer's card.

Danny and Steve ceremoniously burn it (because Steve is a little bit of a pyro and Danny is stupid and romantic and hopeless but this time, well. He thinks this time is it).

And then Steve starts planning, and it is a fucking glorious thing. He has these charts and an iPad and he hijacks the smart table at work and co-opts Jenna into helping with seating arrangements and even Kono looks a little freaked out.

It is maybe the hottest thing Danny has ever seen, he reflects as he pops his pre-natal vitamins.


	14. Chapter 14

Which is why Danny feels compelled to drag Steve home the night before his parents are due in and shove Steve down on the bed with probably more force than is strictly necessary. Whatever, he thinks, tugging impatiently at Steve's cargo pants, it's not like Steve McGarrett is really going to complain if things get a little rough.

Except the asshole's grinning, propped up on his elbows and laughing when Danny finally yanks off his pants and his boxers, only to be stymied by those stupid boots that have laces that are, frankly, ridiculous. "You like the way I plan a wedding, and that's why I'm getting a blowjob?"

"Whatever," Danny mutters, and hauls Steve closer to the edge of the bed, his legs dangling off the side and his cock already half-hard. "Shut up and be grateful." He manages to get to his knees with a modicum of difficulty and pushes Steve's thighs apart, impatient.

"I'm grateful, it's just that -- oh," and whatever smartass comment Steve was going to make gets sidetracked when Danny sucks gently at the head of his cock. It's something Danny enjoys almost as much as the sex, this power he's got to shut Steve up; everyone calls him the chatty one, but it's usually Steve running his mouth in bed, muttering filth and promises and prayers. But like this, pinned down by Danny's left arm across his hips, he stutters to a halt.

Danny lets his eyes close, lets tongue taste the salt-bitterness of Steve's precome and sweat, lets his throat get sore and stretched from the way Steve thrusts just that little bit, nudging up even while he's being held down. Steve's hand runs across Danny's shoulder, up his neck, across Danny's jaw and he presses his thumb against the corner of Danny's mouth. Danny slides off and nips gently at the pad of Steve's thumb, and of course it's _that_ that makes Steve's eyes go wide and his hips strain up, coming and striping his own thighs and Danny's hand. "Jesus," he murmurs.

"Smooth," Danny says, rasping a little, and Steve laughs breathlessly before hauling himself up and tugging at Danny's arms, helping him up on the bed while Danny grumbles about his knees (because seriously, the floors are hard and he's carrying almost thirty pounds more than he usually does, this has got to be love because he wouldn't risk another torn ACL for anyone else) and actually taking the time to unlace Danny's shoes before pulling off his pants. Steve crawls over him, and it's weird that Steve can't sprawl on top of him like he used to anymore, the world's heaviest, hottest, most annoying living blanket. But even on his hands and knees, Steve's only a couple inches away from touching Danny's belly. Like he said: weird.

But Steve's watching Danny's face, eyes flicking across his forehead and his cheeks and his chin. "You've got more freckles, now," he says, his nose almost touching Danny's.

"Mmm," Danny agrees, because it's true; he's out in the sun as much as he ever was, but somehow it's the dusting of freckles across his face and shoulders that's getting darker. His sister Kathleen did the same thing during her pregnancy, he remembers - she'd never had them as a kid, but now they sprinkle over her nose.

Steve presses a kiss, fond and soothing, against the corner of Danny's mouth, before sliding down lower, biting gently at Danny's nipple and grinning against his skin when Danny yelps.

"You'd better not do that anywhere else," Danny warns, but he just gets a chuckle and a wet, hot mouth wrapped around his cock, Steve's hands smoothing down the insides of his thighs. It's slow, and sweet, and when he comes, it's easy to curl up on one side and feel Steve wrap around him, still heavy and hot and annoying.


	15. Chapter 15

The thing is--the massive, bigger-than-the-fact-that-Danny's-a-pregnant-guy thing--is that for almost two full trimesters of this pregnancy, Steve thought Danny was lying.

Which doesn't mean Danny was stupid enough to tell his family that they'd been fighting after Steve knocked him up, but it makes it awkward when Kathleen turns her bright eyes to Steve and asks what he did when he found out.

When Danny's sisters found out that a) Danny was pregnant and b) Steve was flying their parents to Hawaii, it had been a space of three phone calls in five minutes until they had conned Steve into buying plane tickets. They've left their children with their husbands (or, in Kathleen's case, fiance-but-don't-tell-Dad,-Danny-Jesus-Christ) and now they're here, sitting in the back yard with their beers and grinning gleefully.

Steve dutifully tells them about the shock and incredulity and Danny points out that at least Steve wasn't the one who was _knocked up_.

"But look, you don't even have cankles!" Linda says in what she probably imagines is a soothing manner. It's the same way Rachel tells Danny that he's carrying it well--none of it's really comforting.

Nancy just drinks her beer and gives Danny the eyes that say, _Dad is looking at your husband like he's going to kill him: RUN_.

She's not wrong, but Danny's not sure who should be more afraid. When Danny introduced Steve and his dad, they'd had one of those stupid macho bullshit handshakes where one person tries to break the other's hand.

"So you're army," Dad says now.

Danny recognizes Steve's reflexive lipcurl of disgust without even looking at him. "

"Navy SEALs," Steve says.

"Guys who got bin Laden, right?" Dad says, somehow managing to convey that if Steve was a _real_ SEAL he would have been there.

Danny's tempted to tell him about the following eighteen hours where Steve had been glued to the phone. It had been an insight into Steve as a parent, and Danny thinks despite Steve's obvious delusions that he's going to be raising their spawn as some sort of guerilla warrior, it's Steve who's going to be the unreasonably overprotective one.

"Yeah," Steve says flatly.

"So, Steve, you're…retired?" Nancy asks.

"Inactive," Steve corrects.

"So, theoretically you could be called up and you'd have to go?" Linda asks, frowning at Danny.

"Theoretically," Steve agrees, and it's clear Dad has a few choice words about _that_ , but Kathleen steps in and saves the day.

"Are you exhausted?" she demands. "I was _so tired_ both times I was pregnant. Remember my third trimester? I swear I didn't get out of bed."

"That was Billy," Linda dismisses. "Danny's not in a loveless relationship that's dissolving, he's getting married. Or…civil unioning. What is it here?"

"Civil unions," Danny says. "And yeah, tired, but not like you--"

"Ugh, do you have morning sickness?" Nancy asks. "I swear to God, I didn't keep anything down for all nine months, which you realize means I've spent _twenty seven months_ vomiting? That's over two years of my life wasted. On the other hand, it did amazing things for my cramps."

"Yes, the cramps. I think I need to have another one, I'm starting to get, like, that pain, right here," Linda says, poking at her side violently.

Danny turns to Steve, who has raised eyebrows and that vaguely amused smile that screams, _I'M ABOUT TO COMMIT HOMICIDE!_.

His father is talking about their Irish heritage. Danny glances at his mother, who shakes her head minutely and turns to watch the waves roll into the bay gently.

Danny gives it three minutes before she vanishes into the kitchen to make dinner, where she'll stay probably for the rest of the visit.

He can see why this looks bad: he spent a solid year bitching about Steve and then there was relative silence and now he's pregnant and getting married.

"Edwina's a good, traditional Irish name," Dad insists like someone's fighting with him about it.

"I'm not Irish," Steve points out, and Danny watches as his face smooths out as his father's gets red and thinks yeah, they're so fucked.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: some of the links? Not so much work safe!

Because, as previously observed, Kono is a bad person, two days before Danny and Steve are due at the Church of Free People to do the thing -- the Governor's still presiding -- she joins forces with Kathleen and Nancy (Linda disavows all knowledge) and the unholy trinity decide that what Danny really needs is a bachelorette party.

"The fuck," Danny protests, batting Kono's attempts to put a pink boa around his neck. She's got a shirt that says [Save a horse - ride a bridesmaid](http://www.zazzle.com/save_a_horse_ride_a_bridesmaid_yee_haw_tshirt-235002045699450997) and she's wearing hotpants with four-inch heels. This can only end in tragedy.

"Come on, you giant pussy," Nancy advises. "We're celebrating your second-to-last night of freedom."

"Wait, isn't this the Maid of Honor's job, anyway?" Danny knows this is a lost cause, but he feels compelled to try. Chin got picked as Maid of Honor after Catherine called dibs on Best Man; when Danny had pointed out that, since they were two guys getting hitched, they could just have two best men, Chin had looked scandalized. "You can't break with _tradition_ ," he'd protested.

Kono shrugs. "Chin said something about how he wasn't going to wear seafoam green _or_ arrange for strippers for you, so I thought I'd step in."

"Oh," Danny says. "Thanks."

"This is what you get," Kono tells him, "For not asking me to be a bridesmaid."

"Steve asked you first!" Danny yelps. "You get to be a groomsman! You told Steve he'd better have some hot military friends invited to the wedding so you could sex them up in your tux!"

"Oh yeah," Kono says. "Well, whatever. Let's go mash your face in some tits."

"This would be so much better if I could drink," Danny says sadly.

There are strippers, because of course there are strippers -- they go to a surprisingly upscale joint and his sisters and Kono wave money at everything in a g-string. Danny gets lapdances from tanned blonde surfer girls and dark-haired muscle-bound jocks; the only thing consistent is that they all smell like Chanel No. 5. Danny starts covering his eyes at around dance #3, although to be fair, no one's batting an eye at the fact that he's grossly pregnant. Probably when you've been asked to dance up on a guy wearing three feather boas in various colors (Kono's a persistent bitch) and a [tiara](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B003Y0RY8Y/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=3760901&s=hpc), you basically stop asking questions. At dance #5 he calls Jenna, who answers the phone by saying, "This is what happens when you get married, Mrs. McGarrett."

"What, no, I'm keeping my name," Danny protests, because he's a modern woman. Man. Person.

"Whatever, now you see why I laughed in your face when you asked if I wanted to be part of the wedding party," she says gleefully.

"I thought it was all--" Danny pauses to spit out a sequin that got into his mouth Christ knew how. "You know, from your fiance. And stuff."

"Yeah, the trauma was more the rehearsal dinners and the cake tasting and the really terrible dildoes everyone kept giving me at the shower," Jenna says. Wherever she is, it sounds blissfully quiet and stripper-free.

"You really hated the cake tasting?"

"Well," Jenna prevaricates, then hangs up on him when he laughs at her.

In true oldest-brother form, Danny's the one who has to mop up Kono and Linda, who for some reason decide around one in the morning that they are in a blood feud to decide who can outdrink who. Kathleen and Nancy aren't in much better shape; Danny shoves them all into the hotel suite that the Williamses rented out for the week and doesn't feel guilty in the slightest.

He gets home to find Steve in the shower. "Babe?"

Steve pokes his head out; he's got a metric fuckton of shampoo in his hair. "I'm trying to wash the body glitter off," he says. "And the shame."

"Let me know how that goes," Danny says, tugging off his tie and shirt, wiggling out of the belly band and letting his slacks and boxers hit the floor. There's a shirt and cargo pants already crumpled in the corner; Danny bends over with difficulty and picks up [the shirt](http://www.zazzle.com/bride_ball_and_chain_tshirts_and_gifts-235567046179059313). "I take it Catherine did her duty tonight and took you to a strip club."

"She tried," Steve says, pulling the curtain aside and helping Danny into the shower. "But after the third girl I tried to ask about if she was being exploited, she gave up and we went to a club. Kamekona's got moves," he adds. "Also, why do you smell like my grandmother?"

"It's a long story," Danny assures him. "Suffice it to say, I no longer want to mash my face any tits but yours, okay?"

Steve laughs a lot more at that joke that Danny really thinks is warranted -- it's only after they get out and dry off, and Steve shows Danny [one of the presents](http://www.bachelorettesuperstore.com/page/100/PROD/3000-T/candy-pouch) Catherine got for him that he understands.

"This answers so many questions about your relationship with her," Danny says, "And raises so many more."

"Tell me about it," Steve says. "So, want to try it out?"

"I did skip dinner," Danny agrees.


	17. Chapter 17

Danny and his father have always had a much better relationship than Jim has had with the rest of his children. The girls insist that it's because their father is an overbearing dickwad who is simultaneously _excruciatingly_ patronizing and sexist and also empowered. Matt was always a little bit too much of a fuck-up for Jim to go easy on him; they were too different.

Danny had shrugged a lot, stepped in where he needed to, and told Kathleen that yes, it was dickish of their dad to tell her she had options when she got pregnant (both times) and that she didn't have to have his kid, but it was also nice that Jim didn't force her to get married or take her to church like Maria Spanoza's mother did, and then send her away to live with relatives.

Danny is revising all of his previous defense of their father while Jim awkwardly gives _Danny_ the "you have options" speech. "I mean, Christ, Danny," Jim says, "all we hear is how much of a dick this guy is and then there's radio silence and then that _twat_ is the one tellin' me that a) you're getting married and b) you're fucking _pregnant_."

"Okay, I'd like to point out that I am a grown man--"

"God knows you'd be a great single father, maybe Rachel could even help, but in this age there's no reason for you to feel like just because he got you--in your condition"--Danny takes a moment to pray for death, here--"is no reason to be _obligated_. I mean, he's barely been civil to me and your mother's not really comfortable with the whole thing."

"Funny, because everyone else--"

"Your sisters are just thinking this is all fun and games, they get to go home. But you have to--this is a baby, Daniel. Subjecting a child to your experimentation--"

"He babyproofed the floors. He got Babies R Us to lift the ban, I'm not really sure how and I'm not asking, but. Is he kind of a fuck-up? Yes. But so are you and Ma's put up with you for years."

"I don't like seeing you make another mistake," Jim says carefully. "And if it's money, well, we don't have a lot but we can _help_ and--"

 _"Another mistake."_

"Well, Rachel didn't exactly--"

"Well, you wanna know what's awesome about this situation? Fantastic, really, because _you_? You are in Jersey, and I'm here, and unless Steve's flying you back and forth, I'm thinkin' we're not seeing much of you. And you know, I'm not really cryin' over that."

"Exactly! You're all the way across the country, isolated and alone, still reeling from Matt's betrayal...you're in a bad place, emotionally, and now here you are rushing into another marriage like you didn't learn anything from the first and...well. I'm concerned. This Steve guy is kind of an asshole, and it's just going to be Billy and Kathleen all over again--"

"Do not. Do not even--"

"He wants to name your daughter after a dead woman!" Jim shouts back.

"So do you!" Danny does not pull his hair out. He doesn't. He also doesn't punch his father in the face, which is what he deserves.

Hannah Mossey was a woman Steve served with in the Navy--Danny doesn't have all the details because Steve does that thing where he thinks he's being open and forthcoming but he's actually like a motherfucking vault. But Steve talked about how she could run so fast--faster than all of the guys, and she could just keep going, no one could run like her. She was smart and she liked him and Danny wonders if all the women Steve worked with have looked at him with that kind of fondness that Catherine shows sometimes. The grin that says "you're hot, and I have and would still fuck you, but god, it's good you're pretty."

Hannah Mossey died when Steve was still a baby SEAL, or was just joining the SEALs--Danny's fuzzy on the timeline of Steve's career. She died badly, not that there's a good way to die. When Steve told him, that night they were all in the hospital not sure if the bullet had just nicked Kono or if this was the first time they weren't going to get so lucky, he talked about how Hannah ran. She ran fast enough to save them, to blow whoever they were fighting away, but that she didn't make it back. No one could outrun a blast like that.

This is Danny's life: Steve wants to name Spawn after a badass bitch, and his father wants to name her after her great-grandmother. Also, Edwina's just terrible.

Huh, Danny hadn't realized that he'd decided, but yeah. Yeah, he likes it, or maybe Hannah's just stuck with him, but.

Yeah.

Hannah Williams-McGarrett. He smoothes a hand over his stomach. He's pretty sure that his dad is talking about a Lifetime movie, now. Something about the girl from Full House and something about how in the movie the guy turned controlling and abusive, and it was all very fade-to-black and, well, it's not like Danny hasn't made bad life decisions in the past, and how does he know that with Danny so reliant on Steve's income and his house that he won't be a battered spouse? That happens to men.

Danny looks at the sky and prays for death.


	18. Chapter 18

The problem is that now that the spawn's got a name, Gracie's more interested in talking to Hannah than Danny. To wit:

"Hannah, tell Danno to slow down. It's hot. And I'm tired. And these shoes hurt. And Mom's going to be mad if I get this dress dirty."

"It'll be fine, okay? Just -- keep going, I think it's up past this hill."

Danny's not even walking that fast. He would if he could -- he'd be sprinting up the trail -- but all he's got is the waddle at his disposal right now, so it's him and Grace, puffing up the trail toward the pterodactaglyphs or whatever they're called, both of them wearing their Sunday best because every single other place on this goddamn island is infested with family or friends or well-wishers or just, God, _people_ , and this morning he stared at the suit he was wearing to get married a second time to a guy whose expiration date is probably approaching faster than the yogurt in their fridge, and he couldn't stand the thought for another minute, another second.

He realizes that this is probably a bad idea, just as he realizes that whipping his phone out off the cliff when it rang for the fifty-dozenth time was also a bad idea. But he's got Grace, he's got Spawn -- Hannah, Hannah -- and he's working to get a really high-quality blister on his left heel.

"Why is he even taking us up here?" Grace demands of Hannah, who isn't going to be in a position to answer for another month or so; Danny's starting to suspect this is some really interesting passive-aggressive behavior going on.

"Because, it's--" It's where Danny first started thinking about Steve in the context of a family. Steve had asked him to come hiking, his smile brave and bright and certain that Danny was going to say no, and Danny had said yes just to be an asshole, really. And then they'd climbed up and Steve had told him story after story, spinning them out like a ball of twine so Danny could tug at the line and come back to Steve whenever he wanted. He didn't fall in love with Steve here, but if he's honest he has no idea when that happened, exactly. He was in the middle before he'd even realized it. "Because it's pretty."

"Danno," Gracie says, "You have to get married in an hour."

"Oh, so now you're talking to me, huh," Danny says, turning to face her. She's got her hands on her hips, trying hard to look like her mom, and it's nauseatingly cute.

"We should go back," she says.

"I just need--" Danny leans against a nearby rock and breathes deep, because he's not going to have a goddamn panic attack in front of his own kid. Kids. He needs to calm the fuck down.

"He really likes you," Grace tells him seriously, climbing onto the rock next to him and patting him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, how do you know?" Danny's only half-kidding, because he's not really worried about how long Steve'll live; he's worried about how long the marriage will. Danny knows what shotgun weddings look like, and just because Steve held the gun to his own head doesn't mean he wasn't coerced. Danny keeps seeing all the ways they're going to go wrong, and he knows that trying to make it work for the baby is the last thing any marriage can stand.

He doesn't want to get into this thing if it's doomed from the start.

Grace is about to say something when there's the whum-whum sound of a helicopter; a few seconds later it bursts into view, military-sleek and headed full-tilt toward them. "Steve put trackers in all my shoes," Grace yells over the sound of the blades. "That means he likes you."


	19. Chapter 19

Steve comes out of the copter and helps Grace into the harness, waving at the people up and shading his eyes to watch it crest the mountain out of sight.

When the whump-whump of the blades has faded entirely he lowers his hand and tells the rocks, "You broke your phone."

Danny stares at him. " _That's_ what you lead with?"

"I could lead with you pulling a Runaway Bride on me and Jenna citing disturbing stats about the institution of marriage and the fact that you're divorced, but I thought I'd lead with the phone thing, yeah, Danno."

"You know we don't have to get married."

"...Danno. If you _ran away_ an hour before our wedding to give me an out--"

"Because you won't give yourself one!" Danny shouts over him, because Jesus fucking _Christ_ he is sick of this.

Steve gets the look, the one he gets that makes Danny reach for the seat belt or case the exits or mentally compose his explanation to a jury. In the field it makes Danny reach for his gun: he knows how to react--knows the lines and the motions and the feel of that look and what happens next.

He doesn't know what to do with it right now. This is...

Steve kissing him. Hard and brutal, like the first time when it was reckless and stupid and doomed to fail and neither of them cared enough to _stop_.

"I'm blaming this on the being pregnant and having hormones I don't know what to do with," Danny pants when they pull apart, Steve's hands warm on his face.

"I think that's a good call," Steve agrees, grinning a little. "So, the chopper should be back in about three minutes, are we going to be hiding away somewhere or--?"

"Chin and Kono could probably hunt us down," Danny agrees. "And I'm probably not going far...like this."

"You did get surprisingly far, I didn't think you'd make it this far." Steve sounds bizarrely proud, like he thinks he has something to do with this.

"I was powered by rage."

"Yeah," Steve laughs, and rests a hand on Danny's stomach. "Your Dad's insane," he tells Hannah. Apparently Danny's doomed to be surrounded by people who want to be passive/aggressive at him through his gestating child.

"Fuck off," Danny invites cheerfully, and then, "You bugged my kid's shoes."

"I did."

"We need to talk about this."

"After the wedding, dear."

That Steve doesn't show up for his own wedding with a black eye is testimony to Danny's restraint and basic moral fiber.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops this is laaaaate. But whatever. Here's a wedding. Kind of.

Danny honestly, swear-to-God-and-on-his-children's-lives, does not remember the wedding.

One minute he's landing in a field right next to the pretty little church where Steve's parents got married ("I mean, we don't have to," Steve'd shrugged, not looking anywhere near Danny, "I just thought, a little nicer than some courthouse, plus there's all those people--" and really there was nothing to say to that but, "Yeah, okay,") and he sees Chin and Kono and Jenna squinting hard at him from just beyond the safe _whum whum whum_ of the chopper blades; the next minute they're coming out of the church, people throwing unsalted popcorn ("Because rice is bad, Danno, pigeons try to eat it and die." "Isn't that a good thing, Monkey?" " _Danno._ ") at his face and putting about a billion leis around his neck and cheering.

He comes to, more or less, while his dad's arranging the whole messy family into a terrible, terrible group photo, and somehow he's got Rachel over one shoulder, leaning in and saying, "Deep breaths, you don't want to pass out right now, trust me."

"What just happened," he mutters, trying to smile while his dad mutters to his camera.

"You got married, Daniel," she whispers back. "And you managed to talk everyone out of putting you in a veil, so well-done, you."

Danny glances at Steve, who's frowning at Gracie, who's put Billy Hanamoa in a headlock despite his yelling, "Uncle! Auntie! Whatever, lemme go!"

"Hey, guys, break it up," Steve says, separating them gently with his foot (holy shit, how is this the first time Danny's noticed Steve's wearing _patent leather loafers_ ) and it's more than marrying Steve, isn't it, it's that Steve can do this, now; he's got a stake in what Grace does, a stake in what Danny eats, and the crashing moment of realization is that this is no different than how it's been ever since Steve barged his way into Danny's life.

"Okay, everybody shut up, look this way," Danny's dad bellows, and Rachel slips away to stand next to Stan, who's looking constipated about being included in the family portrait. Chin and Kono and Jenna crowd in instead, Chin still with the bridesmaid's bouquet and Kono sweating very slightly in her tux. Danny feels a tug on his hand and looks up; Steve's smiling down at him, a bunch of leis half-hiding his face, and Danny laces their fingers together and decides he's not letting go without a court order. Maybe not even then.

"Smile!"

And Danny does.


	21. Chapter 21

There isn't a honeymoon. Partially because Steve's spent a lot renovating the house and then flying Danny's family out and partially because Danny's idea of "ideal vacation" is Jersey and frankly, Danny's pretty sure that freaks Steve out.

So they say good-bye to Danny's family and Mary and then look forward to the next week of relaxation ("Your gift from us, happy marriage," Chin had said, grinning hard enough to break his face).

Of course, this relaxation and tranquil atmosphere lasts all of two days.

Then someone tries to shoot the Governor and downtown looks like a warzone and Steve takes off flying, peeling out of the driveway and Danny is left, big as a whale and left to the ignominy of having to watch Minna Sugimoto on the local news try not to get shot as she covers the madness. He stares at the screen, trying to get a glimpse of the team--he sees Steve from an aerial shot and Kono crashes a hummer that definitely isn't theirs into the car that some of the shooters are using as cover. She hops out and Minna pretty much comes right there while Kono jogs away, taking into her headset with her jaw clenched.

He doesn't see Chin, but that doesn't mean he isn't out there.

For the first time it hits him how ridiculous this all is: that a team of four is supposed to handle _this_. HPD is out en masse, too, and Danny's not about to undermine their contribution but--

He puts a hand to his kidney and breathes through his nose. "Knock it off, Hannah-bean," he mutters, and sits back down, trying to chill because _apparently_ his child likes him calm. Five minutes later his back is killing him and he's panicky in a way that makes Hannah do summersaults in his abdomen.

About an hour of that later and he pulls over his laptop and googles "contractions".

He stares at it until the next one (oh god, they were supposed to avoid this, Jesus _fuck_ ) and then fumbles for his phone.

"Danno, what's going on?" Steve asks, and Danny can hear the squeal of tires and the stacatto of gunfire and almost says "Nothing, never mind, sorry" but--

"I'm heading to the hospital," he says, grabbing his keys. "You need to meet--Jesus _Christ_ \--"

"Danny! Danny, what's--what are--are you?" Steve is apparently incapable of finishing a sentence. If he passes out in the delivery room Danny is going to tell Kono and Grace and never let him live it down, Danny thinks hysterically, starting his car up.

"Contractions, Steven."

"Shit, shit--" Danny can hear Steve muttering and then Chin replying.

"Danny. Danny, I'm gonna be there. Take the back road to the hospital and we'll be--you'll be fine. I'm gonna be there."

"Yeah," Danny croaks, and floors the gas.

Dr. Takamota comes down to check in with a wheelchair and whisks him away with a phalanx of nurses and one of them asks Danny if he's doing his lamaze breathing.

Danny stares at him and says, "Cesarian. No breathing. This wasn't supposed to _happen_."

The guy smiles at him and Danny doesn't punch him because that would be bad.

He lays on the bed and grits his teeth and waits and ignores the chatter of the nurses except that he can't, is listening desperately and hears things like "massive explosion" and "ER is fucking flooded" and "casualty count."

"Is there anyone I can call for you?" one of the nurses asks after he's hooked up to monitors and has an IV line in. Her nametag says her name is Beatrix. Danny didn't think people were actually _named_ Beatrix.

Danny wasn't going to have this baby without Steve, but apparently he is. And he doesn't want a substitute--doesn't want Grace or Rachel or anyone else. So he shakes his head and Beatrix squeezes his hand and looks up when Dr. Takamota comes into the room and looks at the monitors and says, gentle, "We have to go now, Danny. The baby is coming now."

"Hannah," Danny says. She smiles and nods.

"Hannah," she agrees, and then Danny's being wheeled into the operating room.


	22. Chapter 22

The delivery room is way too bright, and there are people Danny doesn't know doing things he can't understand. "Am I on 'Teen Mom' or something?" he asks suspiciously. "Because that looks like a camera."

Dr. Takamota lifts one eyebrow as some nurses hang bags up near Danny's arm. "You really thought we _weren't_ going to film this?" she asks mildly. "I mean, if nothing else, we need to give investigators as much information as possible just in case it turns out Hannah is actually a space alien bent on our world's total destruction."

"So this is just covering your bases," Danny says faintly, because he really thought he was alone in his fears that Hannah was in fact that chick from _Species_ who was going to kill someone with her tongue. Besides, this is nicely distracting him from whatever the nurse to his right is doing with what looks like a clear tube and a determined expression. He wants to ask but he really, really doesn't want to know.

The nurse notices him not-looking at her and smiles cheerfully. "Epidural," she explains, and right, okay, he can handle that. Except no, he can't, that thing's the circumference of a fucking straw and he really can't handle that whole thing jabbing into his side.

"Deep breaths," Dr. Takamota says. "I don't want you crying or freaking out in the middle of my OR, it looks bad. Plus I bet you're an ugly crier."

"How did you ever get qualified for med school?" Danny demands.

They get interrupted by a thumping sound at the door, and through the tiny glass window Danny can see Steve, some nameless substance streaked across one cheek and looking pretty wild around the eyes. But the next second he's gone and Danny can see vague white-clad shapes flashing around, incoherently, in the window.

"Oh for God's sake," Dr. Takamota mutters, just as someone says something to her over Danny's head about milligrams or something.

"What's he -- what's going on?" Danny demands. He can't see Steve anymore, but there's a lot of yelling.

Dr. Takamota looks irritated. "My staff is no doubt trying to drag your baby daddy down to the showers in order to get him prepped for surgery."

"Prepped? Don't you just slap him in a gown and one of those stupid hats and a facemask and call it a day?" Danny asks.

"I like these hats." She gestures to the one she's wearing. "My boyfriend's daughter made me this hat. You don't like it?"

"Where is my husband, is what I'm asking right now -- ow, ow, _motherfucking ow_ ," because the nurse has chosen that moment to stab him with her straw and he hates everything.

Dr. Takamota pouts, which is pretty impressive considering he can only see half her face. "Fine, you don't like my hat. To answer your question, I've been watching the news all day, too, and there's no way he's coming in here with half the dirt on Oahu, not to mention whatever blood and guts and explosives he's gotten himself covered in. I'd dip him in bleach but I don't think we've got that kind of time."

Danny's about to respond to that when the epidural finally kicks in, and wow, they were not kidding about that pain management stuff. Danny pokes at his thigh. "Huh."

Steve finally makes his grand appearance, wearing the aforementioned gown and stupid hat and facemask and he smells like antiseptic. "Hey, punch my leg," Danny greets him.

"Um. No?" Steve says.

"C'mon, punch it as hard as you can." Danny feels -- okay, so Hannah's about to chew her way out and Steve's in the middle of Electrocuted Bunny Face and this whole thing is probably going to get submitted to America's Funniest Home Videos, but that all seems kind of secondary at the moment. He feels _good_.

Steve looks helplessly at Dr. Takamota, who just sighs heavily while a curtain goes over Danny's chest like some kind of puppet show is going to happen on his stomach. "Just take deep breaths," she repeats.

"You already told me that," Danny says.

"I was actually talking to your husband," she says.

All in all the next two hours are something Danny's not eager to remember, but Steve holds his hand and reports on how gross things are getting on the other side of the curtain ("So I bet you didn't know your liver was the color of a blueberry, Dr. Takamota says that's not natural." "Shut up.") and occasionally strokes Danny's cheek and even more occasionally fields phone calls from the Governor and Kono and Chin, who all sound like they're in the middle of whatever firefight Steve abandoned in order to be a good dad.

"Are you in trouble?" Danny asks him after the third phone call that ends in Steve practically busting a vein in his forhead.

Steve frowns down at him. "When am I not in trouble, Danno?" he says, honestly confused.

"Good point," Danny's got to admit.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's all we wrote.

Hannah McGarrett-Williams makes her debut covered in slime, and while Danny had been on the fence about Steve's reaction to all of this--with Kono making a convincing argument on the one hand for the traditional pass-out/too-afraid-to-hold-the-baby reaction and Chin making an equally convincing case for Steve being a SEAL and crazy with hidden depths-- Steve takes her easily, assorted grossness not really fazing the guy who wanted to come into an OR wearing half of the bad guys in Oahu. He cups her head and her bottom and stands there for a second, just looking at her until Danny is forced to remind him who actually did all the work, and so help me god, Steven, do not even start with me.

He feels lightheaded and just weary, which makes Takamota raise an eyebrow under her stupid hat and point out that he _did_ just have pretty major surgery, what did he expect?

But then he's cradling his daughter and she looks like...well, she looks like a miniature Winston Churchill, though Steve thinks it's more of a Yoda thing going on. She's red and has...a lot more hair than he expected, and he counts all her fingers and toes the way he counted Grace's and thinks she's smaller than Grace was but just as perfect. Wonders if this is how Rachel felt, because it's different. Different than it was when he was meeting Grace for the first time, jittery and nervous and somehow worried she wouldn't like him. And with Hannah he's not, has had her so close for so long it's like she's just finally here, but he's known her.

"I didn't realize there'd be so much...gunk," Steve says, and Danny thinks that this is typical, Steve breaking his moments, and gives him a scathing look.

"She comes by that honestly," he says, and Steve just looks dopey and happy about that, like that is a good thing to have passed along to one's child. Steve, Danny decides, is on permanent laundry duty.

They take Hannah away for weighing and checking and whatever else Takamota is doing, running tests to make sure she's human, maybe, and in the meantime they wheel Danny into a private room to recover. He falls asleep at some point between, but when he wakes up Steve is talking with someone quietly in the corner of the room, body hunched around the cellphone between his ear and shoulder, Hannah cradled in his arms.

"How bad is it?" Danny croaks, and Steve shifts Hannah and hangs up on whoever he was talking to, coming to the bed and pouring Danny water, which he drinks and then regrets when it settles like a stone in his stomach. This is like a flashback to the last time Danny was in the hospital--Kamekona better be bringing him the good stuff, for real.

"Kono and Chin are on their way over," Steve says. He hesitates, and then says, "If you're tired--they were in the ER but I can--"

"They- what?" Danny demands, and Steve shrugs and says,

"I guess Kono broke her hand on some guy's spine and Chin says it's just a flesh wound."

Danny is sure Steve has his own "flesh wounds" hidden under his shirt and pants, but even at the best of times Danny has to be able to actually _see_ them to know Steve's been hurt, or else he does crazy shit like pretend his arm isn't broken. Those two weeks were fucking _murder_ on Danny's nerves.

"Got the bad guys?"

"Yeah," Steve says, grinning at him a little and then shifting to sit on the bed, transferring Hannah to Danny. "Doc says she's human."

"Good, I was worried," Danny snipes, but he was, maybe--worried not really that she wasn't human but that she was going to be hurt in some way. It seems impossible that she was conceived during a drug-fueled craze and then sat inside _his_ abdomen for eight or so months and could be fine, but that just shows what he knows.

Kono and Chin come in looking scrubbed clean, both of them in borrowed scrubs (Chin's are maroon, Kono is in black). There are no obnoxious presents, which is a little surprising, frankly.

"So we left the city standing," Kono reports, leaning against the far wall while Chin stands by the bed, reaching his hand down to stroke a gentle finger along the curve of Hannah's cheek. She shifts into the touch, mouth opening.

"I'm so fucking proud," Danny tells her, but he can't quite manage to get the bite into it that he's going for.

"She's beautiful," Chin tells him, face soft, and Danny wonders if Chin thought he'd be a dad by now.

"She is," he agrees, and smiles quickly at Steve. Hannah chooses this moment to cry, and Danny had forgotten how this sounded, really, the pathetic almost bleating sound of it. It's something the movies always get wrong, somehow, the way a newborn's face twists and their hands flex like their bodies don't know what to do with all this feelings.

Danny twists for a bottle or something--they must have those--and then winces, because huh, okay, his body doesn't want to move that way, and Kono hands Steve a bottle, wiping off the inside of her wrist. Danny raises his eyebrow and she shrugs.

"Younger cousins," she says. "And reproducing older ones."

Danny nods, shifting and holding the bottle at Hannah's lips. He remembers that Rachel had had a hell of a time getting Grace to feed, to latch onto her and _nurse_. That there were tears and him feeling stupid and helpless because it was something he couldn't fix--he couldn't make Grace know what to do and he couldn't help Rachel figure it out. Bottles, it turns out, are easier, or maybe it's a sign that Hannah is not going to be as stubborn as Grace was (although with her genetics Danny doesn't see how that's possible).

Danny gets to miss the fall-out from the latest insanity because, well, he's busy recovering from having his stomach split open and his internal organs moved around. It's partially to monitor his situation, but also because Takamota doesn't really like Steve and think he's going to be playing Rambo and not letting Danny rest.

Like a man on a mission to prove her wrong, Steve stays with Danny the whole time, smiling at Rachel when she brings them both overnight bags and the carseat and other things they'll need to bring Hannah home. Grace and Hannah apparently have a long conversation that Danny sleeps through, but when he wakes up Grace is smiling at him and then launches into her newest chapter of How I Am Going to Rule the World, by Grace Williams, Volume XIII.

Kamekona stops by and takes everything in stride, telling Danny he's sure he'll be a great mom and coos at Hannah in Pidgin, but whatever he's saying must be nice because Steve is beaming.

Then Danny realizes his child is going to be able to speak Pidgin and Surfer and whatever the hell else and...he's actually going to have to learn this shit the way he knows basic French because Rachel and Grace can speak it and fuck if he was going to let them do that behind his back.

Even the Governor stops by to admire the baby, but she also takes the opportunity to inform Steve that if he ever runs out of a situation like that again she'll have his balls.

Then she looks at Danny and Hannah, smiles gently, and says, "Oh, excuse my language."

Danny likes her. He thinks Hannah should pick her to take after, and makes a mental note to expose Hannah to the Governor more than Kono, who apparently took advantage of Steve's absence to kill all the things while Chin, according to Jenna (who is suspiciously starry-eyed), did some of the best detective work ever seen and figured out who was at the head and took them out.

But when they all leave it's just him and Steve and their baby, and Steve's the fearless kind of parent, jumping in and learning as he goes, so fucking earnest and good with her that Danny can sleep when he needs to without worrying, knows he'll wake up and Steve might have her down the hall for a little walk, talking to some of the other dads in the ward, charming the nurses, or he might be sitting by the bed with Hannah in her little plastic bucket of a hospital crib, reading something on his iPad.

It's not always going to be this good--he has Steve to himself right now and it's all new and Steve's trying really hard, and things will change when they get home and don't have nurses around and are working a case and dealing with a baby, but right now his body is recovering from almost nine months of serious insult and he has a husband and a daughter and--

And it's good.

They're good.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry.


End file.
